1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a digital broadcasting reception apparatus and a robust stream decoding method thereof. More particularly, aspects of the present invention relate to a digital broadcasting reception apparatus and robust stream decoding method thereof so as to provide a receiving apparatus of a simple structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) vestigial sideband (VSB) scheme, which is a terrestrial digital broadcasting system in U.S.A., is disadvantageous in that its reception performance is not good in a poor channel environment, particularly, in a Doppler fading channel environment. Thus, the ATSC has accepted new suggestions under preconditions that compatibility with existing receivers is provided, that the existing receivers do not suffer performance depreciation, and that the performance is improved in comparison with the existing receivers in order to enhance the VSB reception performance.
Among the suggestions for VSB system improvement, a dual transport stream scheme enables watching of the existing HD video in a good channel environment and allows for video reception even in a poor channel environment. The dual transport stream scheme generates and transmits a dual transport stream with robust data added to normal data of the conventional ATSC VSB so as to successfully operate in a hostile channel environment.
Hereafter, in reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional dual transport stream reception system is described that provides good performance by transmitting and receiving a normal stream and a robust stream and exchanging information by the robust stream.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional VSB receiving apparatus, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a robust decoder of FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional VSB receiving apparatus includes a demodulator 20 for processing the dual transport stream received from the VSB transmission apparatus of FIG. 1, an equalizer 21, a viterbi decoder 22, a robust decoder 23, a MUX 24, a first deinterleaver 25, an RS decoder 26, a first derandomizer 27, a second deinterleaver 28, a parity eraser 29, a second derandomizer 30, and a robust packet DE-MUX 31.
Referring now to FIG. 2, the robust decoder 23 of FIG. 1 includes a TCM MAP decoder 23a (TCM refers to trellis code modulation; MAP refers to maximum a posteriori probability), a robust deinterleaver 23b, a robust MAP decoder 23c, a robust interleaver 23d, a frame formatter 23e, and a symbol deinterleaver 23f. 
As shown in the drawings, information exchange is conducted through a loop formed between the TCM MAP decoder 23a and the robust MAP decoder 23c until sufficient performance is acquired. Upon the completion of the information exchange, the data output from the TCM MAP decoder 23a is used for receiving the normal stream, and the frame formatter 23e forwards the data output from the robust MAP decoder 23c to a position corresponding to the robust stream of the normal stream and the robust stream. In doing so, the empty position corresponding to the normal stream is outputted via the symbol deinterleaver 23f to be used for the robust stream reception.
As discussed above, when the conventional VSB transmission and reception apparatuses add the robust coding, such as a 1/4 rate coding, to the robust stream using the robust encoder 13c, the VSB receiving apparatus of FIG. 2 should be constructed in accordance with the structure of a conventional VSB transmission apparatus. As shown, the VSB receiving apparatus has a complicated structure.